Last Wednesday I noticed Chione had suddenly lost weight and that her tail region was dirty. Yesterday I cleaned her up and realized she had some blood in her parts, and remembered something I never thought would happen to me. I googled. She matched all of the symptoms of Wet Tail.
This morning, I found her laying still. Her heart wasn't beating anymore.
I don't know how to resize images in BBcode. Sorry.
She lived for 2 years and 7 months. Ironically the number of her death day is the same as her adoption day, 22.
She was one of those cases of a pet store seller incorrectly gendering an animal. We were told she was male and originally she was called Hercules. Then she had a surprise litter of 6- it was a whole chaotic thing, I documented most of it on HamsterHideout back when it was up.
Caring for a living thing brings a lot of anxiety, and I can definitely say I have struggled to sleep because of her multiple times, especially earlier in her first year. She was my second hamster, but the first that I actually took proper care of.
The worst of my grief was felt yesterday, I believe. Learning she was sick with a deadly disease made me feel a shockwave of multiple things-- the loudest of them being this sort of disappointment towards myself. I have felt like I failed her many times, and I felt I had failed her again.
But perhaps it's unreasonable. She was old, and they find it hard to clean themselves at that age, so it was easier for the infection to fester... But I suppose it will take some time for me to fully 'forgive' myself. If I ever do.
We buried her and planted a flower on top. We didn't cover her body with anything because I wanted the flower to feed on her. This may sound grotesque, I know, but the idea comforts me.. I find inexistence more scary than death, so the thought that by being fed on you will remain real as your atoms will simply pass to another living being and help them live and grow... It's optimistic. It's comforting. It's like light from a supernova... The star is dead, but it's not gone.
I feel mostly numb. The sadness comes when I look at pictures of her and write about her, but it will pass. I just hope I can do better next time. With my mom's help we cut some of her whiskers because I wanted to keep them. Do they decay? I hope not. I'll probably print some more pictures of her to make a mural.
I don't know what else to say. I don't know if anything can be said. Thank you to everyone who has offered me help here and in the previous forum when I needed it.
I'm glad she was here with me.
...It's always so hard losing them, but I do think the plant is a beautiful idea <3